


In-Flight Entertainment

by Stuck_Y_OnYou



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), MCU, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Endgame, F/M, Hurt Tony Stark, Pepper Potts Feels, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 21:57:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16941465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stuck_Y_OnYou/pseuds/Stuck_Y_OnYou
Summary: Tony and Nebula are stuck together onboard the Milano, after the events on Titan.They're running out of food, water, fuel, and patience.The days tick by, until Tony has to send what he thinks will be his final message to Pepper.(Based on footage seen in the Endgame Trailer, heavy on the feels and angst)





	In-Flight Entertainment

**Day One:**

They don’t talk. There’s nothing to say.

 

**Day Three:**

“How much fuel does this thing have?” Tony’s voice is dry in the cabin.

Nebula doesn’t look up from the console. “Not enough.”

“What about things we can economise on? Er... heating. Lights. The air quality?”

She blinks, and Tony hears the slight mechanical click of her eyelids. “I switched to CO2 respiration when we set off. You’ll last longer that way.”

Tony just stares at her. “What about you?”

“I’m not certain I can suffocate,” she says. “I’m not overly certain I can actually die.”

Tony wonders if that’s why she’s still here.

And the others aren’t.

 

**Day Four:**

Nebula speaks for the first time without being asked a question. “I am sorry about your son. He was fortunate to have an attentive father. I knew no such thing.”

Tony looks up at her. “Son? I don’t have –”

“The child in the red suit. You held him.”

Tony can barely swallow. Grief has his throat in a vice.

Nebula is confused. “Wasn’t he your son?”

“Ha, yeah, I wish.” It comes out in one damp gust of breath, hidden in a sick half-laugh that has dissolved into tears before Tony has even got out of his seat.

 

**Day Six:**

Tony has a rationing system.

It’s biased in his favour.

Nebula can, it turns out, last longer than he can without sustenance. But Tony also has several wounds that are refusing to heal. One of them is swelled up and puffy, and hurts even to look at. It is infected, and to fight the infection, Tony’s body is using up resources faster than he can replace them.

This means he is going to die first. This is unavoidable.

Nebula finds med-packs for the Guardians. Some of her sister’s drugs and medications she can use, later.

Tony takes out what Nebula tells him are the equivalent of antibiotics. They were for Quill, for emergencies. He injects himself, and watches the wounds close up.

 _I’m not going to die_ , he thinks, stupidly.

Nebula shakes her head at him, as if she can read his thoughts. Perhaps she can.

 

**Day Eleven:**

They find Quill’s music. Tony recognises the tape, and waxes lyrical about the stereo.

They listen to the whole thing.

Tony cries at ‘Fooled Around And Fell in Love’. And ‘Ain’t No Mountain’. And ‘Want You Back’.

Nebula chides him for crying - it’s a waste of water. “Your salt levels are already dropping, Stark. You’re putting yourself at risk of a massive stroke.” She delivers this verdict in monotone.

Tony wants to laugh.

 

**Day Fifteen:**

Tony halves his rations.

Nebula has the guidance system back working. They’re still months from the nearest inhabited plant.

Tony wants to ask about the fuel again, but what’s the point.

Nebula goes outside and sits on the outside of the Milano for ‘some air’.

Tony wonders if she was trying to make a joke.

They switch the engines off for twelve hours, and call that ‘night’, letting the Milano drift on gravity, to wherever it’s going.

 

**Day Thirty:**

An automatic _Happy Birthday Drax!_ message and song plays on the sound system.

Tony and Nebula sit in silence until it’s over.

 

**Day Thirty-One:**

“Which one was Drax?”

Nebula sniffs. “The large one. With the stupidly broad shoulders.”

“Oh,” Tony says, remembering. “Right.”

“He was a fool.”

Tony says nothing.

“But… he was also kind.” Nebula sits back in her seat.

 

**Day Forty-Two:**

Entertainment must be rationed, like everything else.

Nebula can project video, but only recordings of things she has seen. She chooses an early film – a memory of herself and Gamora, making paper chains for a celebration.

She and Tony watch it for ten minutes at a time, taking an hour’s break in-between.

Nebula cuts the memory short when she and her sister look up in surprise. “That’s the end.”

Tony doesn’t press.

The next day, they watch Nebula and Gamora fight.

They will rewatch the two sisters over and over, until Tony starts to dream of the girl with green skin, except in his dreams she evaporated just like Peter did.

After that, there are no more films.

Tony tells Earth fairy tales, instead. In tiny chunks, handing the words out to Nebula and himself like treats.

 

**Day Fifty:**

One of the engines stops working.

 

**Day Fifty-Six:**

“Stark.”

Tony opens his eyes.

“It is possible to shut off the oxygen supplies. Manually.”

It takes Tony a full minute to understand what she means. “No.”

“It would be… less painful.”

“No.” He shuts his eyes again. “I’m not ready for that.”

He hears her stand. “You will be.”

 

**Day Sixty-Eight:**

Tony has had a headache for four days. He can’t allow himself any more water. The recycling powers of the ship are reaching their limit. His last meal was yesterday. He has been sitting in the pilot’s chair for hours.

Nebula hasn’t moved off the floor for days. Only the soft clicks and whirrs of her body tell him she is still alive.

 

**Day Seventy-One:**

The second engine cuts out.

Nebula and Tony go outside to try and repair it, but the engine isn’t broken.

They’re out of fuel.

All they have now are the reserve nuclear batteries to keep their life-support systems going.

But that doesn’t matter.

They have less than a month’s worth of food, anyway.

 

**Day Eighty-Three:**

“It can’t really have been half.”

“It will have been.”

It is the first time they have talked about what happened.

Thanos vanished.

And, minutes later, so did half the universe.

“But… it can’t have been. There were too many…” Tony lets the memories replay again. Quill. Drax. The pale girl with the dark eyes he can’t remember the name of. Strange, looking as if he knew something Tony didn’t, even as the bastard disappeared into ash.

And Peter.

“It would have been half,” Nebula repeats.

The kid had been so scared. With those regenerative powers, and those healing abilities, he might have… damnit, he might have felt it happening before it happened. He’d clung to Tony in terror, begging, pleading, this wasn’t right, he wasn’t _meant_ to die, it wasn’t supposed to happen like this, he didn’t want to go…

“It could be less on Earth,” Tony says.

Nebula hums. “You don’t want to think about it.”

“She’s alive.”

“No one had more of a chance of survival than anyone else.”

“I know she’s alive, damnit!” Tony thumps the floor he’s lying on.

Nebula doesn’t even flinch.

“…she’s alive,” Tony manages, “because I am. Why else would I be here? For the company? The in-flight entertainment? The fine dining?”

Nebula sneers. “You’re a romantic _fool_.”

Tony doesn’t argue with her.

 

**Day Ninety:**

Nebula is laying on one of the two bunks.

She won’t get up again.

 

**Day Ninety-Two:**

Tony has spent the last day staring out into the blackness of space.

There is no one.

There is nothing.

There is only one thing left to do.

He reaches out, and taps what’s left of his helmet.

“This thing on?”

He slumps back, letting his broken body be scanned, as the recording begins.

Tony can’t even bring himself to fake a smile.

But he needs to speak.

Even if this message is going nowhere.

Even if this is the last time he’ll speak out loud.

He needs to tell her.

It’s always been her.

And it always will be.

He heaves out a breath. “Hey, Miss Potts…”


End file.
